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Center Stage: A Theater Drama in Norfolk

IF the Greenwoods Theater at Norfolk was a character in a play, it would be Dolly Levi, the heroine of Thornton Wilder's "Matchmaker" and the musical "Hello Dolly!" said Maura Cavanagh, one of the theater's owners.

"She's this vivacious woman whose attitude to money is that it should be spread around to make things grow," she said.

Ms. Cavanagh and her husband, Richard Smithies, bought the 1883 building in 1998, vowing to bring it back to life with plays, musicals and other events. For a few years, it buzzed with activity, holding full summer seasons and earning some good reviews. But there has been only one play on the main stage of the theater since 2002, and the owners have become preoccupied with financial disputes. The Town of Norfolk, meanwhile, is attempting to foreclose on the theater for failure to pay about $90,000 in taxes. Ms. Cavanagh has vowed to stage a full season this summer, but enthusiasm for the theater has dampened among some people in Norfolk.

"Interest in the town was very high and positive" when the theater opened, said Robert Pallone, an accountant who sold the theater to Ms. Cavanagh and her husband. "I believe it has soured a little bit."

"We never really got the audiences we'd like to have," he said. It's easy to see how the couple fell in love with the theater, with its striking façade and colorful history. It has served numerous purposes since it was built, housing in various eras a community market, a grocery store and a post office, along with its cavernous play and movie house. For years, local farmers even stored their apples inside over the winter, Ms. Cavanagh said.

The theater itself is full of charming details, from the curved railing in front of the balcony to the green, red and yellow proscenium framing the stage. Ms. Cavanagh and Mr. Smithies have been writing, adapting and producing plays and musicals in New York and Connecticut for decades. They live in a former inn in nearby West Cornwall and had been thinking about buying a theater in the area. So, when a friend showed them the Norfolk building, they figured it would be perfect, even though it looked like "a huge old weird, weird warehouse," Ms. Cavanagh said.

Mr. Pallone, who had only purchased the building so he could use its driveway for his adjacent accounting office, sold it to them for $50,000. The couple knew it would take a lot more money to revitalize a building that had been neglected for years. There hadn't been a play produced on the stage in more than 50 years and the façade had lost much of its former glory, Ms. Cavanagh said. So she and her husband, who had recently received a large inheritance, began fixing the place up, she said.

They rebuilt the tower, repainted the outside and renovated the interior. The town was storing the old wooden chairs from the theater in a barn at the dump, Ms. Cavanagh said, and the town sold them back for $1. The new owners had the rest of the 289 seats designed to look like the old chairs. They bought two projectors so they could show movies in the winter and spring, just as previous owners did in the silent movie era.

The theater became a striking beauty, with its delightful green, red and yellow façade decorated with colorful windows and a carved sun and moon. On the first floor, a dress store and a gift shop moved in. Inside, a cafe served theatergoers and opened briefly as a full-time business. The first selectman at the time, Arthur Rosenblatt, had said the theater was the "perfect gem in the crown of Norfolk."

In an interview last week, however, Mr. Rosenblatt said the theater had not lived up to expectations. "The whole thing truly, truly is sad," he said. "There was such promise and such hope."

The theater staged productions starting in 1999, hiring local actors as well as some from New York. The basement has sleeping quarters, so visiting performers can stay over. Ms. Cavanagh began envisioning the Greenwoods as a link in a chain of smaller theaters in Massachusetts and Connecticut that have lively summer seasons.

But for all the money they put into the Greenwoods -- at this point about $700,000 -- there always seemed to be a problem, Ms. Cavanagh said. One winter, the pipes froze and burst, flooding the basement. The foundation, Ms. Cavanagh found, was unsound and the building had begun to sink. The trusses that held the roof were weak and the basement columns began to collapse.

As the building fell apart, property tax bills began piling up. Ms. Cavanagh said she has paid more than $20,000 in taxes to the town, but the town says she owes $89,859, according to Ross Fingold, a lawyer representing the town. In 2002, the town moved to foreclose on the property because of the unpaid taxes. That suit is ongoing.

Greenwoods Associates, the company run by Ms. Cavanagh and Mr. Smithies that owns the theater, filed for bankruptcy to stall the foreclosure proceedings, but the bankruptcy was dismissed last year by a judge.

Ms. Cavanagh said she was distracted by the building's structural problems when the tax issues began to mount.

"These were major emergencies we were continuously faced with," she said. "We just didn't worry about our taxes as we were worrying about the building. We figured it could be adjudicated later."

Indeed, Ms. Cavanagh sued the town in 2003 because the assessment on the property was "illegal and excessive," she said. The town has appraised the theater incorrectly, Ms. Cavanagh said, basing its value on the cost it would take to replace the structure as opposed to its rental income. In addition, the assessor should have taken into account the shoddy state of the building when he valued the building, she said. That suit, as well, is pending.

The current first selectman, Susan Dyer, said she remained impressed with the renovations, but lamented the dispute. She said the town has adjusted the assessment, but "can only adjust to a certain point."

"She did a lovely job renovating the building," Ms. Dyer said. "It's too bad it's gotten to this point. I would hope she would pay her taxes so she can continue doing what she wants to do with it."

Ms. Cavanagh said she planned to do whatever she must, including mortgaging the theater, to keep it afloat, she said. And the summer season of 2006 will go on.

"We are going to triumph over these things, but Lord at what a price," she said.